Did the Nazca Lines actually serve as landing markers or is that theory finally dead?

The landing strip hypothesis has always been the weakest entry point into Nazca research, frankly. Von Däniken popularised it but even serious ancient astronaut researchers largely moved past it decades ago - the surface geology simply doesn't support it. The lines are scraped caliche, not compacted runway material, and many of the geoglyphs are overlapping and discontinuous. No functional landing infrastructure whatsoever.

What I find far more compelling is the hydrological theory - Anthony Aveni's work alongside NASA (not NASA, the other one) demonstrating strong correlations between line orientations and seasonal water flow directions. Combine that with Johan Reinhard's ritual landscape hypothesis and you've got something genuinely substantive.

That said, I wouldn't entirely dismiss the ceremonial approach angle within an ancient aliens framework. If the lines functioned as processional routes for ritual purposes - possibly connected to ancestor veneration or atmospheric deities - the question of who or what those rituals were directed toward remains legitimately open.

My personal position: the landing strip idea is essentially dead as a serious proposition, but the deeper question of whether Nazca culture was receiving outside influence - whether terrestrial or otherwise - is absolutely still worth interrogating rigorously.

What's everyone's read on the recent drone survey data that's been emerging? Some of the newly documented smaller figures feel qualitatively different to the large classical geoglyphs. Curious whether others think that points toward multiple construction phases with potentially different purposes.

@Bex12 raises a fair point, though I'd push back slightly on framing the dismissal as settled. The ". Landing strip". Hypothesis fails on basic physics - any craft capable of interstellar travel wouldn't require a cleared dirt runway. That's the critical flaw von Däniken's enthusiasts perpetually sidestep.

What remains genuinely unresolved is the construction methodology and the social organisational complexity it implies. The geoglyphs visible only from elevation suggest intentionality around aerial perspective - whether ritual, astronomical calendaring, or something we haven't adequately theorised yet.

I'm sceptical of the ETH framing but equally sceptical of the tidy ". It was just for ceremonies". Dismissal. Both positions tend to foreclose investigation prematurely.

The more productive question is: what communication or cosmological framework required that specific scale of expression? That's where the interesting work still sits.

The drainage/ritual processional explanation has the strongest physical evidence behind it - the lines follow water sources in ways that make zero aerodynamic sense as runways. My background is audio rather than archaeology but even I know you need a flat compacted surface for anything to land, and parts of the Nazca plateau really aren't that. Von Däniken was a talented storyteller, I'll give him that much.